The collect of this Mass reminds us that the remedy of sin is the pillars of the Lenten Season, fasting, prayer and almsgiving. Each have their own importance, and certainly during Lent they are practiced in different ways.
With regards to fasting, compared to our ancestors we get off pretty lightly, say 70 years ago we would have been avoiding meat for most of the days of Lent, including Sundays, abstinence still was obligatory. However when we think of fasting, whichever manner we may take it upon ourselves, it is not something that should and can be done every day, we have our feast and solemnities in thanksgiving where we can make merry. One would never dream of fasting during the Easter Octave. It goes against the nature of what we are celebrating. With Almsgiving we should help people according to our means, we can do this by providing items for the Easter hampers.
But prayer, it is not a special edition that we can just practice particularly during lent. No day can go by without some form of prayer. Sometimes we can fret over prayer and worry about what we are to say. I suspect that perhaps when we consider prayer, we might be afraid of the realisation that may come upon us, by God’s grace and the working of the Holy Spirit, that we are not really at ease in dealing with it. Prayer always brings and element of self-knowledge to us. Always pray as you can, it may be in the simplest words, maybe even sometimes there are no words to your prayer. We should always be ready to offer ourselves to the Lord. He will always accept it.
Prayer is essential, it is the very food that strengthens and cleanses our hearts and minds, our very soul. We should only pray as we can pray in a particular moment. Whether it be a quick glory be, or a very short prayer to our patron saint. We can have that realisation that as we place ourselves before God, before Christ in the tabernacle, that we are close to Him. We should keep those moments. They can be strengthening, helping us realise our closeness to God, and more importantly His closeness to us.
We share in the public prayer of the Church when we come and assist at Mass. We are here; however we should try and avoid those distractions that come our way. St. Philip Neri said that when we are distracted in our prayer that we should turn those into intentions. It may be something that is troubling us, make it one of our motives to bring it to the Lord.
Consider a garden, with all its different plants and bushes and trees. All have importance, but their life is dependent on the vagaries of nature, will there be rain or sunshine? Does the land need weeding? In the same way, we too form the growth of garden, which is our soul. Prayer is therefore vital for us to make ourselves ready to receive those graces which God wishes to give us.